South Korea's shipbuilding orders almost halved last year from a year before due to global weak demand, but local shipbuilders ranked first in terms of global market share thanks to solid demand for high-priced ships, a government report showed Monday.

New vessel orders won by the country's shipyards totaled 7.5 million compensated gross tonnage (CGT) in 2012, tumbling 45.7 percent from 13.7 million orders received a year earlier, according to the Ministry of Knowledge Economy.

The drop was attributable to the recession in the global shipbuilding industry. Global ship orders plunged 36.8 percent on- year to 21.3 million CGTs in 2012 due to an oversupply of ships and the prolonged global economic slump.

Despite the global slump, South Korea retained its position as the world's No.1 shipbuilding country with the market share of 35 percent. It was followed by China with a 7.1-million-CGT of orders and Japan with a 2.9-million-CGT of contracts.

In terms of value, the country's shipbuilding orders reached 30 billion U.S. dollars in 2012, more than doubling 15.45 billion dollars in orders won by Chinese shipbuilders last year, the ministry noted.

The ministry said local shipbuilders reaped most of the world' s high-priced shipbuilding orders. In 2012, domestic shipyards booked all the global four orders for LNG-Floating, Storage, Re- gasification Unit (LNG-FSRU) valued at around 1.2 billion dollars, along with one out of two orders for a Floating, Production, Storage and Offloading (FPSO) and LNG-FPSO worth around 2 billion dollars and 770 million dollars respectively.

Contracts won by local builders for LNG carriers accounted for 73 percent of the total global orders in 2012, with the figure for drill ships reaching 67 percent, confirming the local builders' competitiveness for high-priced vessels and offshore plants.

The country's exports, or actual deliveries, of ships plunged 29.8 percent on-year to 39.7 billion dollars in 2012 due to delivery of low-priced ships won in the post-2008 crisis period.

The ministry warned that the global shipbuilding industry will face difficulties in 2013 due to uncertainties over the global recovery and the oversupply, but it forecast that local builders would outperform the industry due to demand for high-priced ships.

Top 10 local shipbuilders, including Hyundai Heavy Industries, Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering and Samsung Heavy Industries, set its 2013 ship order target at 58.8 billion dollars, up 9 percent from a year before.